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Keeping Up With Your Policies

This is Brian Askins with Secure Insurance Group, I have been in the insurance and financial industry since April 1990. I have always been very passionate about what I do, fortunately I found the career I love very early in my life.

The goal of this blog is to help you understand the multiple types of insurance products available to help you build a sound protection and financial plan for you and your family. We will give you up-to-date information on the products available and how these products could help you SECURE your future. Insurance products are ever changing, therefore this blog will keep you up to date to help you insure you have the right products in your portfolio.

This blog will go many different directions, but let’s first discuss, making sure you have all of your active policies in a safe place, your beneficiary designations are correct, and your beneficiaries aware of the coverage’s you have and the carriers you have the coverage’s with.

Let’s first discuss keeping your active polices in a safe place. If you can not locate your policy, call the company you have the coverage with and ask for a duplicate. While your making a request for a duplicate policy, have them also send you a change of beneficiary form, just in case you need to make changes to your beneficiary designations.

Also, another very important part of Insurance is to make sure your beneficiary designations are exactly what you want so the money is paid out exactly how you want and to whom you want it paid to. If you are in doubt about your beneficiary designations, pull out your policy and review your beneficiary designations. Another important part of your beneficiary designations is to make sure you have a contingent beneficiary, unless you have your Trust as your primary beneficiary. I can not stress how important having up-to-date beneficiary designations is to prevent issues after death.

Additionally, you’ll want to make sure your beneficiaries are aware of the coverage’s you have and the carriers you have the coverage’s with. This is very important, because thousands of policies go unclaimed every year. I would recommend you having a conversation with an Estate Planning Attorney to discuss what policies would benefit from being in your Trust. If you need an Estate Planning Attorney, I have a very good one that I personally used to set up my Trust and have recommended to many of my clients. We will discuss Trust in a future blog.

Lastly, if you think there is a chance of a loved one that has passed had insurance with a carrier, contact that carrier and inquire. It will only take a few minutes to find out, but the most important part of this is, if your loved one did have coverage, the benefits from that coverage could be paid out as the loved one had desired.

Our next blog will discuss why you need to have a policy review done at least every couple of years. Some future topics on the blog will be, why a Trust might be a good idea for you and your family, what amount of Life Insurance you need, and what products you might need in your protection and financial portfolio.

If you need to help or advice on any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact me.